China's Bear Farming and Long-Term Solutions
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JOURNAL OF APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE SCIENCE, 7(1), 71–80
Copyright © 2004, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
COMMENTARY
China’s Bear Farming
and Long-Term Solutions
Peter J. Li
Social Sciences Department
University of Houston–Downtown
For more than 2,000 years, bear bile has been an important base ingredient in
Chinese traditional medicine. Prescriptions containing bear bile are believed to
have healing powers for varieties of heat-related illnesses such as eye irritation,
liver diseases, hemorrhoids, kidney problems, and even cancers, to name just a
few. Various books of medicine circulated in China’s dynastic past documented
bear bile’s medicinal effects. Its recording in The Compendium of Chinese
Materia Medica (ben cao gang mu) written by a legendary Ming Dynasty doc-
tor, Li Shizhen (1518–1593), solidified its position in Chinese medicine.
Traditionally, bear bile was collected from an entire gallbladder taken from a
bear killed in the wild. This method of bile extraction failed to provide a steady bile
supply to practitioners of traditional medicine. Consequently, bear bile medicines
were exorbitantly expensive. Scarcity helped to mystify bile’s healing power. In
the late 1970s, however, North Korea succeeded in developing a “technology” for
obtaining bile from live bears. Bear farming was born.
Chinese officials saw bear farming as a lucrative business and an enterprise that
served the people’s health needs (“Commercial Raising,” 1994). Government sup-
port and the lure of instant profit led to a mushrooming of bear farms across the
country. By the mid-1990s, there were as many as 600 farms keeping more than
10,000 bears for bile extraction. For many years, Chinese officials and farm own-
ers had chosen not to see the humanitarian crisis on the farms. What they cared
about was a steady flow of the “liquid gold” generated by the incarcerated bears.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Peter J. Li, Social Science Department, University of Hous-
ton–Downtown, 1 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002. E-mail: lipj@uhd.edu72 LI
In 1993, bear suffering in China was first exposed to the outside world. Tens of
thousands of protest letters inundated Chinese diplomatic missions overseas. The
international outcry forced Chinese authorities to confront the moral issue of bear
farming. To dissipate international condemnation, Chinese authorities announced
in 1994 that no new bear farms would be licensed (Chen, 1997). Subsequently, the
Chinese Forestry Ministry (1996) issued a special notice stating that no foreign ob-
ject is allowed to be inserted into a bear body. No bears younger than 3 years of age
and lighter than 100 kg can be used for bile extraction. Bears can be confined in
cages only during the time of bile extraction. In March 1997, at an international
conference on the bear parts trade, Zhiyong Fan of China’s Convention on Interna-
tional Trade in Endangered Species Management Authority declared, “[T]he prob-
lem of farm bears being maltreated has been basically solved in China” (Roberts,
1998).
Responding to my question about Sichuan farm owners’ compliance with the
Chinese Forestry Ministry (1996) notice, a provincial forestry official answered
assuredly, “They have complied fully” (X. S. Deng, personal communication, No-
vember 4, 2003). This study is less a challenge to the official claim than to bear
farming itself. Is bear farming or farm bear conditions “improvable”?
METHOD
This study involves two methods of collecting information on China’s farm
bears. First, an extensive literature review was conducted via the World Wide
Web. Books on China’s bear farming do not exist, but there is a plethora of spe-
cial reports, eyewitness accounts, tourists.’ descriptions, and journalistic reports
on China’s bear farms. Special attention was focused on the following subjects:
1. Bile extraction methods.
2. General farm conditions.
3. Physical and mental health of the bears.
4. Death of bears and main causes.
5. Bear conditions after 1996 when the Chinese government issued a special
notice on improving farm bear conditions.
In the literature review, priority was given to special reports by international
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) involved in Chinese farm bear rescue
and investigation: the Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) and the World Society
for the Protection of Animals (WSPA). More recent investigative reports in Chi-
nese language newspapers also received greater attention.
Although Internet searches can produce the latest journalistic reports related to
bear farms, even the most up-to-date Internet data on farm bear conditions is 7BEAR FARMING AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS 73
months old. To make up for the belatedness of the Web sources, telephone and
electronic interviews were conducted with international animal welfare activists
who are involved in rescuing farm bears in China: Chinese central and provincial
wildlife protection administrators, China’s animal welfare legal experts, and vet-
erinarians who are directly involved in providing medical care to the rescued
bears. In the course of the interviews, specific questions were raised about
short-term remedies and long-term solutions to bear farming. The interviewees
provided detailed information on a wide range of issues: rescued bear conditions,
postrescue medical care, some of the most common reparatory surgeries on the
rescued bears, and Chinese public and official attitudes toward bear farming. In-
formation from the two sources is synthesized in the following sections.
BILE EXTRACTION AND BEAR SUFFERING
By mid-2003, farms and use of bears for bile extraction had declined in number
(R. S. Chen, personal communication, August 17, 2003). In Sichuan Province,
one of the five provinces with the largest number of bear farms, the number of
bears declined from 2,700 in 1999 to 2,300 in 2002. Nationwide, the number of
farms and bears is estimated at 247 and 7,002, respectively (J. Robinson, per-
sonal communication, November 4, 2003). Bear farming features small family
farms with as few as four bears or large-scale, state-owned, conglomerate-type
operations boasting almost 1,000 bears (Yin, 2002). Are the farm owners com-
plying with the Chinese Forestry Ministry (1996) as Chinese officials have
claimed? Eyewitness accounts and investigative reports on the bears for bile ex-
traction have presented a diametrically different picture.
EXTRACTION METHODS
Originally, farm bears were implanted surgically with latex, later replaced with
stainless steel, catheters (tubes 10 to 20 cm long) in their stomachs. One end of
the tube with a metal disc is inserted surgically into the gallbladder and secured
with a purse-string suture. On the other end, the second disc lies within the ab-
dominal cavity supported by the abdominal muscle. An opening or hole is cut in
the bear’s abdomen for controlled or free bile drainage (Cochrane & Robinson,
2002). Because the insertion of a catheter into the bear’s body caused multiple
complications and bear deaths, the Chinese Forestry Ministry (1996) banned the
use of catheters. Instead, it required the adoption of a free-dripping method.
The use of this so-called humane free-dripping method requires the creation of
an artificial fistula between the gallbladder and the abdominal wall. For this pur-
pose, an opening is cut in the gallbladder so that it is stitched to a corresponding74 LI
hole in the bear’s abdominal wall. Or, a tube made of the abdominal mesentery is
created to link the opening in the gallbladder to an open wound cut in the bear’s
stomach. Through this open wound, the farm worker inserts a tube into the fistula
once or twice a day to extract bile. Since the issuance of the Chinese Forestry Min-
istry (1996) directive, the free-dripping method has been the only bile extraction
method allowed (Cochrane & Robinson, 2002).
FARM BEAR TREATMENT
Bears react strongly to either method of bile extraction. To make the bears easier
to milk, farm owners have adopted a series of measures to restrain them:
1. Bodied-sized cages. Most bears are kept in cages with dimensions that aver-
age 129 × 60 × 67 cm (G. M. Cochrane, personal communication, January
15, 2004).
2. Crush cages. These are cages with movable sides for moving toward the
bears to constrain them during bile extraction procedures.
3. Metal corset. Metal corsets are put on the bears to prevent them from taking
out the foreign objects inserted in their bodies or from self-mutilation in re-
sponse to surgery-caused irritation, pain, and inflammation at the open
wound.
Additional methods include the following:
1. Declawing. The third phalanx of each front digit is often removed to pre-
vent the bears from harming the farm workers and self-mutilation.
2. Cutting back teeth. Bear teeth often are forcefully removed to remove their
defenses.
Years of confinement and abuse have taken a heavy toll on most bears. Most show in-
juries caused by the cage bars on their pain-wracked bodies (Cochrane & Robinson,
2002; Wei, Tang, & Wang, 2002). Because of severe mental agony, they exhibit ste-
reotypic behaviors such as “rocking backwards and forwards, banging their heads
against the metal bars in a desperate attempt to stimulate their intelligent minds”
(Cochrane & Robinson, 2002). Other physical conditions include “gaping holes
caused by crude metal catheters or the new ‘free dripping’ method” and “chronically
infected abdomens, weeping blood, pus and bile” (AAF, 2003).
Bile extraction is painful. Bears less than 100 kg and sick bears are not spared
for bile extraction. In the process, bears scream at the top of their lungs and shiver
incessantly (Wei et al., 2002). Farm bears die in large numbers from infections atBEAR FARMING AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS 75
the bile exit site. As a result, wild bears, indicated by their missing limbs and other
noticeable signs, are obtained to make up for the farm bear loss (AAF, 2003;
Cochrane & Robinson, 2002; Wei et al., 2002). Finally, bears are denied access to
water. The bears’ diet is reportedly composed of mainly vitamin-poor corn mash
(WSPA, 2002).
WHAT DO THE RESCUED BEARS TELL US?
Farm bear suffering in China has attracted the attention of international animal
welfare organizations. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) was
among the first to respond to the farm bear crisis. Since 1998, the AAF has be-
come the single most important international NGO devoted to rescuing China’s
farm bears and seeking the end of bear farming throughout Asia. In the summer
of 2000, the AAF signed a historical agreement with the Chinese officials on
rescuing 500 bears in China’s southwest Sichuan Province. Since then, 99 bears
have been rescued and the 85 surviving bears (27 males and 58 females) are liv-
ing in AAF’s Bear Rescue Center in Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan. The pre-
molars extracted from the bears are yet to be sent to the United States for age de-
termination. They can roughly be classified, however, as young, middle-aged,
and old bears. Judging by the latex catheters that were found in four bears, some
of them could have been in cages up to 20 years (J. Robinson, personal commu-
nication, November 3, 2003).
Cochrane and Robinson (2002), AAF founder and AAF veterinarian, respec-
tively, provided the most authoritative scientific data on the level of suffering the
bears had gone through in a span of as many as 22 years. Tables 1, 2, and 3 are
snapshots of the bear conditions based on their report, a recent speech by
Cochrane, and their correspondence with the author.
All the bears who arrived at the Rescue Center were given immediate medical
attention. Bears classified as critical received emergency treatment and surgery.
Some of the most often performed medical procedures are as follows:
TABLE 1
Number of Animals Asia Foundation Rescued and Surviving Bears
Time of Arrival Total Rescued Total Surviving
July 2002 78 68
December 2002 21 17
November 2003 37 34
Total 136 11976 LI
TABLE 2
Death of Rescued Bears and Causes
When Total Deaths Causes
Prior to arriving at the
Rescue Center 3 Unknown
At the Rescue Center 15 Massive abdominal peritonitis, septicemia,
suspected maxillary tumor, oversized
kidneys, liver tumor, and self-mutilation
Note. Out of 99 rescued bears.
TABLE 3
Physical Conditions of Bears
Number % Medical Conditions Causes
46 68 Chronic infection around Unsterile surgical conditions
the implant or Unqualified persons
free-dripping sites performing the surgeries
12 16 Abdominal hernias Use of unsterile materials
67 98 Abscesses in mesentery, Bacteria attack through the
gallbladder, abdominal “hole” in the abdomen or
musculature, or through the catheter
subcutaneously Bile leaking into the abdomen
19 25 Gallstones Incorrect dispensing of drugs
by farmers
14 18 Foreign objects such as Unqualified persons
rubber tubes and knotted performing the surgery
cotton suture materials
42 56 Serious damage to the Frantic bar biting due to
canines mental distress or
farmer-inflicted teeth
damage
Note. Out of total of 68 surviving bears rescued by July 2002.
1. Removal of metal or latex catheters and other foreign objects.
2. Removal of all of the gallbladders.
3. Amputation of trap-damaged limbs.
4. Removal of canine teeth damaged as a result of frantic bar biting or
farmer-inflicted tooth damage (G. M. Cochrane, personal communication,
November 5, 2003; Cochrane, 2003).BEAR FARMING AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS 77
According to G. M. Cochrane (personal communication, November 5, 2003),
completing all the medical work on the bears requires 3 months. Depending on
the conditions of the bears, different doses of antibiotics are administered for
different durations after surgery.
DISCUSSION
The veterinary diagnosis confirms the various observations on bear suffering.
Precisely, every one of the three major requirements of the Chinese Forestry
Ministry (1996) has been violated: (a) using free dripping instead of catheters,
(b) caging bears only during bile extraction, and (c) no extracting for bears
younger than 3 years or less than 100 kg in weight. According to the AAF
(2003), 85% of the 75 bears rescued by July had metal or latex catheters
(Cochrane & Robinson, 2002). Therefore, the report that 600 bears at Chuandian
Pharmaceutical Company’s bear farm in Yunnan’s Longchuan County undergo
bile extraction through metal catheters is not baseless (Sheng et al., 2002). Also
34 (45%) of the 75 bears weighed less than 100 kg. Before being rescued, 27 of
them already had been used for bile extraction (Cochrane & Robinson, 2002).
Terminally ill and aging bears also are not spared from bile extraction at other
farms. Most bears remain permanently caged in their iron “torture chambers.”
Inflicting the Cruelties
Would strict compliance with the Chinese Forestry Ministry (1996) alleviate
farm bear suffering? The answer is an emphatic “no.” Life-long confinement;
denial of proper food and access to water; and exploitative use of young, under-
weight, and dying bears are the most noticeable cruelties inflicted on the bears.
Medical problems the bears suffer are not easily noticeable. Because the
free-dripping method is not a humane procedure, this latter suffering would not
disappear even if the notice were strictly enforced. Even if the surgery to create
a fistula were done in completely sterile conditions, an open wound cut in the
bear’s abdomen allows bacteria to enter directly into the body either from the
environment or via the extraction tube during the extraction procedure (G. M.
Cochrane, personal communication, November 5, 2003). Serious health prob-
lems with the free-dripping bears include (a) cholecystitis, (b) polyp formations,
(c) abscesses at the connection of the gallbladder to the abdominal wall, (d) gall-
stone formation, “hole”-like lesions on the inner surface of the gallbladder wall,
and (e) partial herniation of the gallbladder into the subcutaneous area
(Cochrane, 2003). Of the bears rescued in 2002, 48.1% who had undergone fis-
tula surgery required antibiotics to fight infections at the open wound; 22% of78 LI
the free-dripping bears had gallstones (Cochrane & Robinson, 2002). Except for
ending bear farming, there is really no solution to China’s farm bear suffering.
Making It Worse
Farmer ignorance and wanton brutality make bear suffering worse. Unqualified
personnel—human doctors and inappropriately trained veterinarians—have been
hired to perform the surgeries of catheter implantation and fistula creation. The
farmers themselves often provide the postsurgery care to the bears, often using
instinct to guide drug use. The ghastly sight of pus, blood, and bile seeping from
the open wounds suggests serious health problems suffered by the bears. Report-
edly, 50% to 60% of bears die from complications caused by the crude surgeries
and improper postsurgery care (WSPA, 2002). Farmer-inflicted injuries such as
chopping off the third phalanx of the front digits and cutting back bear teeth as
deep as the gum level cause permanent damage and pain to the bears.
Despite the Chinese official claims of bear population increase in the wild, a
considerable number of the farm bears are not bred in captivity. Of the 75 bears
rescued to the Chengdu Rescue Center, 24 of them (32%) were believed to be
caught in the wild based on their bodily features, such as missing limbs, scarring,
and other noticeable signs (Cochrane & Robinson, 2002). The director of
Chuandian Pharmaceutical Company’s bear farm told reporters that many bears
on his farm were purchased from wildlife traders from Burma (Sheng et al., 2002).
There is legitimate concern for the fate of the existing wild bears both in China and
in neighboring countries if bear farming perpetuates in China.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Because bear farms will not close soon, the Chinese authorities and animal welfare
groups—both within and outside China—can take a number of actions to alleviate
bear suffering in the short term and, in the end, to make bear suffering history.
First, the Chinese authorities should strengthen law enforcement. All bear
farms must comply with the Chinese Forestry Ministry (1996) directive or face
farm closure. Bears cannot be caged except during bile extraction. The bears’ diet
must be improved. Access to water must be provided at all times. Sick, old, young,
and underweight bears cannot be milked. Bears must be provided with space, toys,
and enrichments and allowed to play and socialize (J. Robinson, personal commu-
nication, November 4, 2003). Bears who are suffering from surgery-induced ill-
nesses or farmer-inflicted injuries must receive proper medical attention.
Second, the Chinese Forestry Ministry (1996) directive should be revised to in-
clude additional articles against cruelty. No bodily injuries such as forcefulBEAR FARMING AND LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS 79
declawing, cutting back bear teeth, or causing pain to the bears by any other act
should be allowed. In addition, the Ministry must include a new article on obtain-
ing professional postsurgery veterinary care for the bears. Farmers should consult
professional veterinarians in administering medication to the bears on their farm.
Third, the international community and Chinese domestic NGOs should en-
courage Chinese authorities to start the process of animal welfare and anticruelty
legislation. Currently, these two topics are debated among interested legal experts,
animal welfare NGOs, and the concerned public. It is time to push these two topics
onto China’s legislative agenda (W. Song, personal communication, September 5,
2003).
Finally, international and domestic Chinese NGOs have a large role to play in
fostering a new culture on the Chinese mainland. Anticruelty education in various
forms, such as outreach programs oriented to schoolchildren and the traditional
medicine community, will help eliminate demand for bear bile in the future.
Bear farming is intrinsically cruel, despite the many “honorable” ends it serves.
It is not something that is improvable. The decline in bear farms and in government
support seems to confirm an inevitable trend of its slow but steady phasing out.
Even though farm owners have been engaged in aggressive marketing strategies to
promote new bear bile products such as tonics, wine, and cosmetics, mainland
Chinese have reacted negatively to bear farming (IFAW, 1999). R. S. Chen (per-
sonal communication, August 17, 2003), General Secretary of the official China
Wildlife Conservation Association, expressed his optimism about the eventual end
of bear farming in China. The recent findings on bear conditions should help rein-
force that conviction among Chinese officials.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I thank Jill Robinson, founder and CEO of Animals Asia Foundation, and the
Foundation’s veterinarian Gail M. Cochrane for their support and generous shar-
ing of bear rescue information.
REFERENCES
Animals Asia Foundation. (2003). The Official Animals Asia Newsletter, 4, p. 4.
Chen, Y. (1997). An open letter to Comrade Li Xiaoxi on the question of bear farming. Retrieved July 20,
2002, from http://www.greenweb.org/nainiu/greennews/tx890108.htm
Chinese Forestry Ministry. (1996). Notice on strengthening the management and administration of bear
farms. Beijing, China: Author.
Cochrane, G. M. (2003, October). Problems associated with the free-dripping fistula technique as a
method of bile extraction from Asiatic black bears. Presentation at the Animals Asia Foundation,
Hong Kong.80 LI
Cochrane, G. M., & Robinson, J. (2002). Veterinary and welfare discussions of bear farming and bile
extraction methods: An Animals Asia Foundation report. Retrieved July 19, 2003, from
http://www.animalsasia.org/beinformed/images/AAF_VetReport.pdf
Commercial raising saves bears. (1994, March 7–13). Beijing Review, p. 34.
International Fund for Animal Welfare. (1999). Public opinion survey on animal welfare. Beijing,
China: BMS.
Roberts, A. M. (1998). China’s appetite for bear parts: Suppressible or insatiable? Retrieved October
12, 2003, from http://www.montelis.com/satya/backissues/may98/appetite.html
World Society for the Protection of Animals. (2002). Q & a’s on China’s bear bile farms and the illegal
bear trade. Retrieved September 20, 2003, from http://www.east.org.tw/chinese/03/link3–5.htm
Wei, S., Tang, B., & Wang, K. (2002). Bile extraction is excruciatingly cruel: A China central television
report. Retrieved September 20, 2003, from http://www.cctv.com/news/bjzl/20011203/100003.
html
Yin, H. W. (2002). Cure human patients or rescue bears? [Yunnan TV report]. Retrieved September 20,
2003, from http://www.yntv.com.cn/new/tuijian/tuijian/index.php?id=64You can also read
